Mack & Row

I've been a bit preoccupied with action shots lately & haven't made many posts not to just have more of the same.

The Macro Workshop my mom & I run gave me a great opportunity to get away from my flashes... almost completely, but not quite. I need to get out of my comfort zones & keep trying new or old things again. I even managed a few shots at 33 Stellenbosch & Rustenberg without insects in. I find macro extremely fun, but also one of the most difficult forms of photography as the world is magnified so much through my 105mm. It quickly turns the smallest space into the hugest area of photographic opportunities & that makes it quite difficult to choose a subject & when you're in Rose's garden at Rustenberg you have a real problem. It is a massive garden with some plants & flowers I have never seen before & makes it even more of a challenge with so many wonderful subjects.

With the Eagles I wanted to do a bit more along the lines of what I had done last year & had a 3rd flash to play with, so was fun to get my fix of rim lighting with 2 flashes & had the 3rd handheld as a fill. I always enjoy going to Eagle Encounter & just watching the birds & they had some new visitors, a black spar & a very tame vulture that was more like a puppy than a vulture so made it a bit easier to get close for the shots.

By now I have so many shots from Butterfly World & wasn't feeling all that inspired, so spent most of my time wandering around just looking & getting a few snaps... I had been there for a spider shoot a week or so before & will make a post on that sometime soon. After having the place to myself pretty much I got a bit spoiled & do enjoy shooting the butterflies with just 1 or 2 people so you have more opportunities to get to the little guy that's sitting in just the right spot.

All in all it was a great weekend & am glad I got some time for a bit of macro again & will try not to wait quite as long before the next session.

___________________________________________________________________

I also managed to kill my old logo in a batch resize... have it backed up somewhere, but thought it was a good time to work on a new one & might make a few changes still, but am quite happy with it so far.

___________________________________________________________________

Div

Organised a shoot with Damion at Gums a lil while back. Really like shooting there, well sculpted jumps, long line down the side out in the open & the quarter, hip & a few other things under the trees, so nice bit of variety all in 1 spot.

With the combination of a spot like Gums & a rider like Div my job was not too difficult. In case you havn't noticed from a few of my other posts Div gets more height than anyone I've seen & has a good bag of tricks & rides so smooth it's cool just watching him flow over the jumps. He also had his Flow prototype that is bright yellow, so it stands out nicely against the blue sky.

Weather was looking really good in the morning, but by the time we got there the wind had picked up quite a bit & was not ideal. Didn't stop him from throwing his bike around like mad & got one of the most clicked lookbacks I've ever seen... with a huge smile on his face to top it off. Some tricks were no goes because of the wind, so will have to make a plan to go soon again & we have some cool ideas in the pipeline & am really looking forward to give them a go.

Once we were done with the outside line we went to the quarter, the wind had picked up even more by that time so was a bit tricky. He still managed to get some crazy height out of it, but on one he just about flat bottomed on the landing & blew out his rear tyre. We had had quite a good session by then, so decided to call it a day & not struggle in the wind any more. Was a good day & pretty amped on what I got.

DH Nationals

This last weekend was the 1st SA DH Nationals of 2009, conveniently held up in Jonkershoek a whole 3 min drive from my house.

I went to check the course & get a few shots at Saturdays practice & decided to take the shuttle up & walk down rather than lug all my equipment up the mountain & was definitely a better idea. The course was not too technical with no rock gardens, but it was extremely dusty & in no time the roots were uncovered & making things a challenge for the riders. With 2 road gaps a small rock jump, a jump into a steep slope with another jump at the bottom, loads of trees lining the track (a few a little too close for comfort) & a long mellow stretch to the finish the track was fun, but not too crazy. The dust did however work in the photographers favor (besides it getting all over the equipment) , beams of sunlight coming through the pine trees lighting it up made quite a cool atmosphere. The loose surface also made good opportunity for roost shots.

Louis Knipe was probably the most unlucky rider of the day, after a crash in his 1st run leaving him with a mild concussion he was told that he was fine for his 2nd run & never having a concussion before he trusted the medics judgment & halfway through his 2nd run he blacked out & hit a tree. Needless to say that was it for him.

With Andrew Neethling home for the race it was pretty easy to guess what the results would be & he clocked in the fastest time of the day with 2 min 11sec.

Pierre van der Merwe on his new green Morewood with a green & white kit to match & now riding for monster was a photographers dream with crazy speed & great colours. He was the fastest junior down the mountain with 2 min 20sec.

Ricka Olivier had a little more competition this time than she normally does, but wasn't enough to stop her & she was the fastest female down the mountain with 2min 50sec.

2 days of crazy downhill on my doorstep meant a good weekend for shooting & great weather to be in a forest watching the action. Next DH is George in Mid March, so should be good.

top 5 overall:
1. Andrew Neethling
2. Johann Potgieter
3. Jonty Neethling
4. Garry Barnard (& co)
5. Pierre vd Merwe

for more info check EXTREME MTB

Bicykills & Candy Floss Skies

I've been working in Hout Bay quite often the last lil while & now that the sun is setting a bit later there is still a bit of time to shoot. Quite conveniently Johnty's house is a few km away from where I go to work, so have been to shoot at his jumps twice & after the 1st shoot I knew we needed to shoot at sunset. There is a nice view to the bay & mountains all around with a small gap for the sun to set into.

Johnty's jumps are litterally in his back yard & after sessioning them for a bit we went to a lil hip jump down the road. The next time was pretty much the same, but had a bit of a flatland session in the road at the hip while we were waiting for the sunset.

Once the colours & clouds started to do their thing we moved back up to shoot the spine. We were quite lucky with the sunset & had some good clouds & colours & Johnty & Blaze had nice bright T-shirts on so needless to say I was clicking away like a madman. Am really happy with the results & reckon I'm only shooting in sunsets from now on haha